Tracking heart rate through your head, hoping for more accuracy

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Moov, the company that makes small coaching sensors, wants to measure your heart rate without crowding your wrist. The company just announced Moov HR, a sensor that's nearly indistinguishable from its existing activity monitors but only measures your heart rate. Moov's current trackers are small and light enough to be worn on your wrist or on your ankle, depending on the activity, while the HR is designed to be worn, not on your limbs, but on your head. The new device come with either a headband or a swim cap to hold it against your temple so it can measure your pulse.

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The placement of Moov HR is its most interesting feature. Wrist-based optical heart rate monitors can be inaccurate for many reasons, most of them involving user error. Wearing a wrist device too loosely or too high up on your wrist can result in bad readings. But with a headband or the swim cap snug against your skull, the HR isn't going anywhere. Also, according to Moov representatives, the head is an ideal place to measure pulse since it has good blood perfusion, or flow, with little flesh getting in the way of measurement.

Moov created the HR without outsourcing from another company and tested it at the University of California, San Francisco's Human Performance Lab for accuracy. The HR I saw demonstrated did a good job tracking heartbeats and displaying real-time changes in the app. Of course, the demo subject's bpm was low since we were just chatting around a table, but I'm looking forward to finding out how accurate the HR is during a long, intense activity. I'm also curious to see how comfortable it is against my head during a workout; the sensor is light, but still much thicker than both its headband and swim cap holders.

Moov has consistently taken a different approach to activity tracking than most other companies. Its devices, including the Moov HR, focus on making you better at certain activities like running and swimming rather than just counting steps or strokes. With all the talk about fitness trackers being ineffective weight loss tools, Moov wants to remind customers that being healthy isn't always about losing weight.

Using the updated Moov app that features its AI voice coach, users can wear Moov HR during a workout, listen to the coach, and follow along with videos in the app to complete high-intensity interval workouts. Those routines alternate short bursts of rapid movement with less-intense moves to work your heart consistently and challenge it to reach higher heart rate zone levels. Rather than focusing on weight loss or even moving more throughout the day, Moov emphasizes exercising better to strengthen your heart and other muscles.

As mentioned before, Moov HR is only a heart rate monitor—it won't track activity stats. You can use the HR by itself if you just want to train using heart rate zones, but you can also connect it to multiple devices through the Moov app. Doing so, however, increases the amount of money you'll have to spend just to track what other devices like the $150 Fitbit Charge 2 can in one device. At $59 per sensor, you'll spend about the same amount buying two Moov trackers as you would with a single, comparable Fitbit device.

Since HR's AI coach delivers instructions and feedback using connected headphones, you won't be able to listen to the coach during swim exercises. At launch, Moov HR with AI coaching will work with new in-app workouts including HIIT Run and Bodyweight Circuit, and the device will monitor heart rate bpms without coaching in existing routines including Outdoor Cycling, Cardio Boxing, and Swim.

Moov HR is available now from the company's website in Moov Sweat (headband) and Moov Swim (swim cap) packages for a special price of $59. The price will eventually go up to $99 per package.

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Valentina Palladino
Valentina reviews consumer electronics for Ars Technica, testing all kinds of gadgets with a focus on mobile devices and wearables. She has a soft spot for Chromebooks. Twitter@valentinalucia